I arrived home last Thursday from Terri’s funeral.  It was an emotional and exhausting four days.  It still seems like a bad dream to me, but of course there is nothing now but to move on.

I was supposed to go to Colorado to be with Joe and Jeff for the NCAAs and to perhaps ski, but Friday morning found me unable to do much but walk around in a fog.  I did laundry but couldn’t focus enough to decide what to pack, and the thought of another plane trip just sent me over the emotional edge.  Reluctantly, I let Joe and Jeff know I wouldn’t be coming and that I would definitely be a party pooper if I did come.  We will be going there again in May for Joe’s graduation from CU so…

Now.  What I would like to know is how come it never occurred to me that packing up all our stuff was only half the story?????  We are not unpacking everything figuring this will be a temporary home for about a year, but I am finding that a lot of stuff will get unpacked just to carry on our life in these United States of America.  Each box of “essentials” I unpack reminds me that in another year it will have to get packed up again.  Presumably we won’t be moving that far so I envision it as similar to the college student/young adult moves of yesteryear – throwing much of it into the back of the car and going back and forth.

We are comfortable though.  Our rental house is pleasant enough – lots of natural light, quiet.  I was mentioning to Al yesterday that for some reason this house just feels like a home, which is not something I would have expected.  It guess the “stuff” of life is really what makes a house a home.  I can’t wait for the guys to come and bless this place with their presence.  But there on the wall is the clock Jeff made in middle school woodshop, there’s Ed curled up in his bed, the glide rocker I bought at that Black Friday garage sale a few Thanksgivings ago in the corner, the little caned rocker that I re-caned in my college apartment and of course my piano.  It all means I’m home.

Al and I cannot believe we are really together again for more than a weekend.  It has been three years, which in itself if almost impossible to fathom.  Before you know it I’ll be packing up.  Or not, who knows?  I could stay here for quite some time and be perfectly happy I think.